In This Episode
Warning: this episode contains a use of a racial slur.
From the rollback of human rights and Trump’s BBC lawsuit to AI slop in politics – what the %@£! was that? Nish and Coco are joined by comedian Shappi Khorsandi and political commentator Jovan Owusu-Nepaul to make sense of the wild year that was.
Labour’s first full year in office was marked by u-turns and an inability to use the word ‘genocide’ but there were some significant new bills that boosted the rights of renters and employees.
Reform’s polling and local election success had mainstream parties running scared – but the reality of actually running stuff may have revealed the party’s limits. While Starmer focused on the threat from the right, the left was revitalised by the resurgence of the Greens and the (albeit chaotic) energy of Your Party – can they shift the political dial?
As 2025 draws to a close – Nish and Coco hand out some very special awards and can we get a Palestinian lullaby to Christmas No.1?
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TRANSCRIPT
Nish Kumar [AD]
Coco Khan What a year.
Nish Kumar What a year!
Coco Khan Did you think Keir Starmer would turn out to be such a wet wipe?
Nish Kumar We’ve got, we’ve got to start this on higher Christmas energy than me just going, Oh God.
Coco Khan Yes, yes, I did. Okay, so what about this? A former hypnotherapist becoming the shining light for progressive. Did anyone see it coming? No.
Nish Kumar No, that was a surprise to me, I will acknowledge that was a surprise.
Coco Khan Well, on the pod today, we’re kissing goodbye to 2025 with a festive special looking back at the best and worst of a wild year in British politics.
Nish Kumar There will be awards sent in by you, our dear listeners, to one of the stars of this stormy year.
Coco Khan And to help us out, we’ve got some very special guests along for the ride. Hello. Hello, special guest.
Shappi Khorsandi Hello, Special Lady.
Nish Kumar Look, before we get started with the review of the year, we should just take a moment to say how shocked and appalled we all were to hear about the anti-Semitic terrorist attack in Sydney this week. Two gunmen opened fire on a celebration at Bondi Beach on the first day of Hanukkah.
Coco Khan Yeah, it’s really devastating news and our thoughts are with the victims and the wider Jewish community. But the incident has also been a reminder of the best of humanity with tales of heroism like that of Ahmed El Ahmed who tackled and disarmed one of the shooters and more than 20,000 people across the country signing up to donate blood.
Nish Kumar For now, on with the show, let’s introduce you to our very special guest, Shappi Khorsandi is a celebrated British-Iranian comedian known for her takes on identity, family and modern life. She’s lit up. Always with.
Shappi Khorsandi Oh, that sounds so hilarious. She must be a hoot, I can’t wait to meet her. Identity comedy, amazing, wow.
Nish Kumar She’s lit up screens on Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week, QI, Have I Got News for You, and even Brave the Jungle on I’m a Celebrity. She’s a regular on BBC Radio 4’s Just a Minute and countless panel shows. And it says here, she refers to me as her comedy dad.
Shappi Khorsandi Yeah!
Nish Kumar I’m younger than you!
Shappi Khorsandi I know, but I think of you as both a father to me and weirdly a son. I have a complex relationship with you in my own head. In front of my children, I was saying, the kids call Nish Uncle Nish, and my daughter goes, no, you call Nish.
Nish Kumar Shafi is also, as you may be able to tell, a very good friend of mine. Thank you so much. Welcome to the show.
Coco Khan Our next guest is a political commentator and co-host of the podcast, What’s Left. So it’s Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Yeah, that’s correct, yeah. I know a lot of people get it wrong, but yeah.
Coco Khan Are you a bit Asian?
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul I’m half.
Coco Khan I knew it! I know
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul So I’ve got one of those. I’ve got a Indian dad.
Coco Khan Jovan stood against Nigel Farage as the Labour candidate for Clapton in 2024. He was 27 years old, which is chilling to all of us who were not doing that at 27. It wasn’t just his political ideas that got everyone talking though, with one ex-user suggesting he could be Minister for Style, thanks to some truly fabulous outfits. I remember reading a, were you in GQ?
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul I know, I can’t even believe that I was in GQ, but yeah, there I was.
Coco Khan You know, people talk about you shouldn’t go for style over substance, shouldn’t you?
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Why not try both? People seem to like it. You’ve got some terrific knitwear on for the benefit of podcast listeners. Yeah, really, really strong. I mean, my wardrobe is basically just knitwear, so.
Coco Khan Well look, it’s great to have you on the pod.
Nish Kumar Now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ruin both of your looks because the producers are insisting that we wear some appalling Christmas tats.
Shappi Khorsandi You know we’re going to end up talking about something serious and I’ll have a Santa hat on my head.
Nish Kumar Yeah, that’s part of the prank of this special episode of Pods, I think. Can I have this one? Do you want the ears? Here’s the problem. I tried all of them before you got here because I have an enormous head. And so I had to- Is your head big? You mean that literally? We had to establish that the only one- Literally have a big head. Yeah, both literally and figuratively, I’m big headed. So I have to wear this- I think that one looks nice on you. Okay, so we’ve got antler ears, we’ve go- Do I have put the nose on as well? I don’t think so. I think leave the nose. Coco and I are wearing sort of Christmas elf.
Coco Khan Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we’re wearing identical hats so that everyone knows that we’re the host Who’s in charge Coco?
Shappi Khorsandi So looks apart. You look like you volunteered at your kid’s school to be in the grotto.
Coco Khan I regret it. The studio looks like Christmas. Nish has promised us a carol after this. He got an ovation for his performance at Walthamso Soho Theater, we’d like to add last night.
Nish Kumar Listen, I performed Mary X-mas by John Lennon and Yoko Ono with Himesh Patel. I will say, some of those lyrics, I think Lennan might have been in a rush when he actually listened to it back. But it was very magical, and I will not be singing in the studio. If you’re listening to this or watching this, there’s a possibility a clip has gone in here. If it hasn’t gone in, it’s because I watched the clip, thought it sounded appalling, and did not let the producers put it in the episode. There’s a choose your own adventure relevant to this section of the podcast. So look, let’s move from that onto politics. So let’s cast our eyes back to the start of the year when after an incredibly slow start, our new Labour government decided they needed to let the public know that they were finally getting stuff done and to communicate this new message of dynamism, they turned to an AI slop video. For listeners of the podcast, the video was Labour’s plan to change Britain for the better with a series of AI-generated animals including a hair dressed as a nurse cutting waiting lists, a bulldog in a police uniform making you feel safer with more police on the beat, and a badger bringing rail back into public control. Clearly badgers are fans of nationalizing public services, but unfortunately for them there was an issue with the song, Coco.
Coco Khan Right, so someone had the brilliant idea to put it to a Portuguese backing track by DJ Helanda. The song urges a naughty young girl to sit on the singer’s pot crazy dick. And it ends with a repetition of the line, just a punch to the young girl’s pussy. Anyway, so Labour apologized for using a soundtrack that was completely inappropriate and took the video down. So not the best start for Labour in 2025. I would say on the nose. Don’t you think Bulldog Police is a bit on the nose? The whole thing.
Nish Kumar The whole thing, the song choice, the video, everything about it was absolutely unfathomable.
Shappi Khorsandi And also, didn’t they bring the Lorin to muzzle? I mean, I don’t know exactly what breed the bulldog was that we saw, but it certainly didn’t have a muzzle, and it did look like it might have exalbillia. There was a lot wrong with what I thought.
Nish Kumar The difficulties they had with their comms were mirrored in the difficulties they had in the act of governing. So under pressure from rebelling back rich MPs in June, we saw Keir Starmer perform a series of spectacular U-turns. There was the slow motion change of mind on the winter fuel payment for millions of pensioners. Then he caved in to calls for a full national inquiry into grooming gangs despite earlier dismissing them as amplifying far right demands. And finally, he climbed down on cuts to disability benefits. Here’s Dr. Mary Tidball in the Commons explaining why she couldn’t support the bill.
Clip So it is with a heavy, broken heart that I will be voting against this Bill today. As a matter of conscience, I need my constituents to know I cannot support the proposed changes to PIP as currently drafted on the face of the Bill before us today.
Coco Khan So that’s three U-turns in just one month. Surely a record of some sort. Jo Van Chappie, what were your hopes for the Labour government thinking back to January 2025? Oh, mate, I voted.
Shappi Khorsandi So I’m not really sure as a lifelong Labour supporter, I just couldn’t once I was in the ballot box because I just felt that we don’t have a strong leader and this was not the Labour that I grew up being aligned to and that I loved and I marched for and I campaigned and They were not making the meaningful changes that were needed. And all they were doing and all they are doing is trying to keep a ship afloat that’s already sinking. I wanted to have hope in a party that would actually make changes.
Coco Khan I just find it interesting that, like, probably, I mean, I’m assuming you started this year being like, I am a lifelong Labour voter, we all did on this podcast.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul I mean, I’ve seen the Taurus since I was 14 years old.
Coco Khan All right, Jovo, forget it, you’re young.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Coming off the back of 14 years of literal destruction of the country, I was hoping, and I’m still somewhere optimistic and hopeful that they can turn things around, but I was hoping that things would be done much more quickly. There’d be actual structural redressing of the county around poverty and inequality when it comes to housing. When we’re looking at poverty, I genuinely thought the government would be a lot more committed to some of moral things that make the Labour Party the Labour party, and I think… It’s taken them a lot of backbenchers speaking out a long time to finally start to get into a position where they can even talk about this stuff. I was a lot more hopeful, but I still remain, I don’t know, hopeful that the Labour Party can do something because it always has to. Do you think that would require a change of leadership? I think at this point, it’s pretty obvious. I mean, when we’re looking at the polls, how can the governing party be governing at like 14% or whatever in the polls? Like that’s kind of unexplainable how bad that is. So I think it has to come to a head where actually maybe the prime minister, we have to reconsider who’s leading us into the next election. But it’s not even about the next selection. It’s like, what is the country going to do in the meantime? There’s another, what, three and a half years left, I think, of this parliament. Still, there’s still so many local authorities that are under Labour control. Why are we not embracing all of that kind of authority that the country has given us to really turn the ship around? And I feel like. At the moment we’re wasting a bit of an opportunity to do something kind of exciting, special and actually recalibrate the country to work for ordinary, just working class people.
Nish Kumar There’s this idea that they don’t have a story that they’re trying to tell the country. Like people keep saying, what’s the Labour story, what is the vision, what the narrative? And I always think sometimes, I think progressive people have a kind of instinctive fear about talking about stories because it makes us seem wooly and we try and ground everything in concrete proposals and policy. But I think what you’re seeing is the problem when you don’t an overarching narrative or a vision for the country that you’re trying cell, whereas at the moment it feels… Constantly trying to write a ship. It doesn’t feel like they have a sense of direction.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul I always say the Labour Party, it’s a 20th century party led by 20th-century men. The ideas of democratic socialism haven’t been brought into a modern age. What does it look like when we’re seeing such growing levels of inequality, so much so that it’s incalculable? When we’re just seeing the rich just creaming off the backs of people who are going to work really hard every single day. Public services are still continuing to sink because we just don’t have the resources to put the money in. There’s a productivity crisis. The answers aren’t coming from… The Labour Party at least as it stands today, and it’s not that they don’t exist within the Labour Party, they absolutely do, but people like Zack Polanski are starting to outflank the party from the left. Some of these ideas are natural Labour ideas and I think we should be embracing them, if not to kind of keep voters, but also to transform the country.
Nish Kumar Yeah, if we’re trying to look at positive things, they did U-turn on the two-child benefit cap. As with a lot of the things that this government has done, they’ve dragged their feet on it for so long that by the time they actually did it, they didn’t get any credit for it. The renter’s rights bill going through is a real win for renters. And also, just this week, Labour’s employment rights bill has been passed and is now set to become law. The bill gives significant new rights for workers, including early protection against unfair dismissal, rights to guaranteed hours, granting paternity and parental from day one and strengthening trade unions. On Ukraine, Stammer has been good. He’s been a leading part of the coalition. However, on foreign policy, the government continues to tie itself in knots in the response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. And despite mounting evidence, the Foreign Secretary David Lammy still couldn’t manage to find the words. Here he is speaking to Sky News.
Clip Human rights groups are now accusing Israel of a genocide. Is that happening, do you think? We’ve been very clear that the seeds of children dying, the horrors of people not being able to get aid, is unacceptable. Is it a genocide, though, do think? I was clear back in September that we did believe that there was a clear risk of a breach of international humanitarian law.
Nish Kumar Just to be clear, we have cut that interview for length, because again, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from this year’s news, if you’re cutting the interview for a length, you have to make sure that you flag it up as much as possible. For the Labour Party to be doing this, even politically, feels unwise because you are alienating a huge part of your core support, right?
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Are our kind of values, our kind moral driven values to look at something that’s just so full of injustice and cruelty and inhumanity and not be able to call it out when so many other countries around the world have, I think it’s a part of the Labour Party’s history that will be seen in a very problematic way to put it kind of kindly, but it’s a bit of a dark part of our British history.
Shappi Khorsandi We are being too kind. It’s unreal. And when I listen to David Lemmy now and watch him able to keep to a line when asked that question that is so blatantly one answer, I thought mate, you’ve dehumanized yourself. David Lammy in that moment is not allowing himself to respond as a human being. Say it. Agree. And that will make you seem human. Even if it might mean, take it. If people lambast you for it and attack you for, take it. That’s your job. You’re a politician. You’re not a kid’s TV presenter. Be hated. Risk being hated, risk being challenged. I don’t believe what he was just saying.
Nish Kumar You don’t believe he believes what you’re saying, yeah?
Shappi Khorsandi I don’t believe he believes what he was saying. I believe he was making an enormous effort and that’s where we’re going wrong. Look at Trump, right? The batshit stuff he comes out with. And for all the, I disagree with everything that comes out of his, I was going to say mouth, but let’s face it, backside, he takes that risk and the people who support him still support him.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul What we’re seeing at the moment is this kind of decline of conviction politicians. And I think to a point this year, not just in the Labour party, but in the Tory party, we’re saying that hence the reason I think the both parties are languishing in the polls. Because, as you say, like it or loathe it, we’ve known where Faraj has been for the last 20 years, what his positions have been.
Coco Khan Well, you rattled off a list of Labour’s accomplishments earlier, and like, you know, they are accomplishments. And I think that’s why we all sit here, even though we’ve all feeling different ways and at points have even voted different ways, saying that we’re lifelong Labour voters, because Labour is not just the current party. It’s a history. It’s an entire movement. It has done loads of different things. I think probably we all still believe that that has power. You’re so right.
Shappi Khorsandi They have done really good, like my special area of interest is youth services and it’s vaguely in my peripheral that they’re talking about youth clubs and all of that.
Nish Kumar Yeah, that’s right, yeah.
Shappi Khorsandi And I just thought to myself, there was a time where I would have jumped on that, but I’ve been so disheartened by everything that it really isn’t my peripheral.
Nish Kumar When it comes to the subject of Gaza and Palestine, there was an area the government were very quick and decisive to take action on and that was to ban the direct action group Palestine Action. It all had some sort of unintended consequences as well.
Clip Good man. I don’t really have a terrorist. It’s news to me grandkids anyway.
Clip Free! Free! You can see the amount of Palestinian flags here and it’s fucking insane. The BBC editor is going to have some job.
Nish Kumar So that was a protest of being arrested at a Palestine Action demonstration and that was also little extracts from the knee cap and bob villain sets at Glastonbury. The prescription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group is absolutely batshit and surely it’s a political owned goal for Labour, again, to separate the moral imperative of protecting people’s right to peaceful protest. This is also, electrically, potentially very damaging for life.
Coco Khan Genocide has been live streamed to all of our phones. They have really underestimated the exposure the average person has to some of the most horrifying sights they will ever see in their lives, the stuff that will give them nightmares. I think they’ve really underestimated that.
Shappi Khorsandi But they did and also just looking at the kneecap and Bob Villain and remembering that moment when Sinead O’Connor tore a picture of the Pope and how hard they came down on her and pilloried her and how we look at that moment now in our history. Bondi Beach horror, We see pictures of an imam and a rabbi. Together at the memorial, right? Beautiful picture. And I looked at that and I thought most people are like that. Most people, if you come off the internet, that’s what we’re like. And to make space for that to happen, our politicians need to take risks. We are though, grassroots, but it takes-
Coco Khan Yeah, as you say, like political leadership, but emotional leadership. It sounds wooly to say that. I expect my politicians to be emotionally intelligent. But I do want to also talk about, on the subject of rollbacks, the rollbacks of protest rights, the roleback of trans rights. So the Supreme Court ruling in April was a watershed moment that has had huge ramifications for who can now access single sex services and spaces like refuges and toilets, with trans people at risk of being excluded from public life entirely. So Keir Starmer also welcomed the judgment saying a woman is an adult female, never mind that time back in 2022 he was proudly saying trans women are women and taking part in London Pride with Angela Reyna holding a placard in the colors of the trans flag. Shappi I think you summed this up quite superbly at the time and yes we have a clip.
Clip So Keir Starmer previously said that he believes trans women But now he’s saying that he believes that trans women are not women. So everyone has to go back to the High Court and let the law decide what is a Keir Starmer.
Shappi Khorsandi It’s only until trans, I was going to say trans people, but it’s really trans women because there’s not a lot said about trans men.
Nish Kumar I mean trans men are completely erased from the conversation.
Shappi Khorsandi Yeah, trans women ask for rights and ask for visibility, but all of this started, but they’ve been using the same toilets and the same services. And this has become a thing that I can’t fathom and it’s caused discord amongst my own friendship groups, people of my generation, sadly, are really immovable, some of them on it. And it’s heartbreaking, it’s really heartbreaking because my version of prejudice is racism. So when I have someone saying to me, but Sharpie, if you’re born a woman, you can’t turn around and say a woman. And that feels the same when people say to me but you can be English because you weren’t born here. And I know it’s not the same. But the pain of it is how I understand it the same, right? Because I’m not a trans woman.
Nish Kumar I think the point you’re making is really valid. If you’ve experienced prejudice of any sort, there is a part of you that is activated. If you have been targeted, there’s a part that I think is activated very viscerally when you see someone else targeted.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Also, because I think a lot of this stuff, it doesn’t really make sense in the same way that I guess racial prejudice, racism doesn’t make sense to me, just minding my own business as a black person, why should a trans person have to like suffer under the yoke of like these prejudices?
Nish Kumar Institutional, whatever’s. There’s a couple of key fishes that I think the conservative global movement has been able to kind of press on, to kind foment discord within the kind of progressive movements. And I think one is the rights of cis women versus the rights to trans women. And the other is the right of immigrant communities versus the white working class. Those are two issues that I have been fomented by the right and I think progressives have been too stupid in those cases to actually. Realize that we’re being played. And just walk straight into the trap? Walk totally straight into the trap. Equality is not a finite resource, you know, and granting equality to one group does not denigrate another group. E- equality enhances equality. I can’t believe the extent to which we’ve just walked into the trap, as you say, that has been set for us. So look, as we record this, we’re still awaiting the updated code of practice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which will provide, we’re told, practical guidance on how to apply the ruling. But it’s important that we keep the pressure on, we recommend following the Trans Solidarity Alliance for updates, and remember, you can still write to your MP to ask them to scrap the band.
Coco Khan After the break, in the red corner, it’s the all-new Your Party and the Greens, and in the blue corner, its Reform. Who will be victorious?
[AD]
Nish Kumar This year has also seen an awakening of a new wave in politics, and it’s been exciting and also confusing and frustrating and upsetting. In July, Zarah Sultana, who was suspended from the Labour Party last year, alongside six other MPs for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap, which of course then Labour did end up scrapping, announced that she was launching a new political party with former leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn.
Coco Khan So over 700,000 people registered interest. That is enormous. So hopes were high, although their choice of a name might have hinted at the chaos to come. Things went quickly downhill with an extremely public power struggle between Corbyn and Sultana culminating in the two founders threatening to sue each other on social media.
Nish Kumar There seems to be an uneasy detente between the two of them, but it remains a sort of ongoing situation. Meanwhile, few people would have predicted that when Zack Polanski took office as the Green Party leader in September, that membership would surge from 70,000 to 150,000 in a matter of months, and has kept rising. According to the latest YouGov polling, the party’s share of the projected vote has soared too, growing from 10% to 17%.
Coco Khan So while the Greens have previously struggled to cut through, Polanski has been dominating the airwaves with his calls to cut bills, tax billionaires and just generally not being a robot. It turns out quite rare in politics, so here he is working his magic on Channel 4’s The Last Leg.
Clip I’m going to start if you waffle, they rev. Here we go.
Clip Who would you cast to play climate change in a movie?
Clip Nigel Farage, he’s full of hot air anyway Wind farms trees pandas snog marry kill go marry one and kill one marry the pandas I don’t want to kill any wind farms. I don’t want to kill anyone Have you ever watched porn somewhere you shouldn’t by accident? Obviously!
Shappi Khorsandi And that’s what we need in this country!
Nish Kumar You talked about conviction politics and a conviction politician. Zack Polanski, a conviction politicians.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Well, evidently, I mean, he’s someone who’s talking about big picture ideas, someone who seems to have pictures to power. I mean people are buying into his ideas and they’re getting a surge in the polls. So I think there’s obviously something to be said about people just being more authentic and saying what they believe and I think we should see more of that.
Nish Kumar Shaps, Zack Polanski, does he fill you with hope?
Shappi Khorsandi Yes
Nish Kumar And we’re done. And we are out.
Shappi Khorsandi That’s all I have to say. Young people really like him and I think that’s tremendously important. I’ve never ever known young people to be so engaged in politics and he’s sort of come along as a breath of fresh air.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul There was that Corbyn surge in 2017, and so I think there’s an appetite amongst my generation and people older, people younger, who want just a radical politics, things to get better and we can actually start to say, well, look, there are a lot of people who are making loads of money whilst we’re all going to work. We can’t even get a house. What are you going to do about it? I mean, these aren’t kind of big, massive questions. These are the essential questions for a democracy like ours. And yet… None of the mainstream political parties at the moment seem to have an answer to it. So I can see why there’s a lot of uptick in the Greens. But as I say, I mean, I sound like an old bull, but like these are Labour Party ideas. They should be within the Labour Party. I just don’t understand why we’re not making the case for them.
Coco Khan Do you think that he has what it takes to really take the fight to Nigel Farah?
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul My challenge with the kind of populism stuff is that it can sometimes be simple answers to complex questions and I think at times both Farage and Polanski can engage in some of the populist rhetoric, but there may be substance to it. I mean, we’re seeing them shape the direction of the Tory party and the Labour party, so who knows? I mean the next election obviously will tell quite a significant story, but they’re a series of little tests in between May next year when we’re going to see local elections. It’s really up to everyone to contest, and we’ve just got to put our best foot forward. The Greens are obviously going to do that, Reform are going to that, but in all of it, the Labour message can’t get lost in any of that kind of stuff.
Shappi Khorsandi I don’t always talk about my roof fur on podcasts, but the nice chap that mended my porch roof, he came over, he was a white working class man. He came over last week full of rage. He’s a massive reform fan and I found myself talking to him and he couldn’t to me because he’s too angry. You know, shabby, you know I’m not a racist, and I was like, yeah, and you get called a racist and that’s really tough because that’s just a shut up. We need someone who talks to him, right? So I sent him a load of Gary economics.
Nish Kumar Gary Stevenson, friend of the show, multiple former guests on the show.
Shappi Khorsandi And he’s promised me to watch them, right? Because he’s, and I thought we, who is talking to him because he’s got legitimate frustrations and it’s an extraordinary privilege to be able to see the bigger picture, right. But when someone is really struggling, working all the hours and still not able to make ends meet, we need to connect with him the way Faraj has done, right, I can’t do that, but Gary Stevenson is doing a brilliant job.
Nish Kumar I also think that when we look at like the Corbyn surge or the Polanski surge from a progressive perspective, it’s totally explicable. Post-2008, we have seen that neoliberal and deregulated economics does not deliver. So any time a Jeremy Corbyn or a Zack Polanski or a Gary Stevenson comes forward and acknowledges that the economic model is a broken promise now at this point, they always enjoy this massive upsurge in support, especially from. 40 and under, because we have not experienced the benefits of deregulation. And that’s, I think, part of the problem with the offering that Sama is trying to make, which is a kind of Labour-lite version from 1997. Dr. Justin Marchegiani…
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Yeah, the halfway house.
Nish Kumar Yeah, that’s right. And third-way social democratic politics, the kind of Clinton-Blair era, the idea was free people, free markets. It turns out if you leave markets too free, they will run amuck. And that’s the lesson of 2008. And so trying to resell people on that financial model just isn’t going to work because they’ve been confronted by too much evidence that it doesn’t. We’re seeing a lot of people go towards Zack Polanski and run towards Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn. Unfortunately, we’re also seeing a lot of people go the other way. Which is to look at that broken economic system and blame immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, all of which brings us to the Reform Party. In February, the party overtook Labour in the polls for the first time, and in May, they achieved major success in local elections, winning control of 10 councils and securing the largest number of seats overall. Last week, Reform announced that it’s the largest political party in Britain and now has more members than Labour. And as if we needed a reminding of how important it is for progressives to get their act together, we got a glimpse of what a reform-run UK might look like.
Clip We probably need a DOGE for every single county council in England.
Coco Khan After their local election surge in June, Farage announced a rescue plan for councils inspired by Elon Musk’s Doge concept aiming to streamline local government and cut waste. But as far as we can see so far, they’ve not found any significant savings. There are even claims that they are spending more than previous councils.
Nish Kumar Lots of reform council areas may see their council tax go up this year, as well as spending cuts. So it’s not a great sign that Doge, which to be absolutely fair, did not work in the United States of America, has worked here. And for anyone struggling to pay their bills, this is incredibly worrying. This is a sign of what things might look like if reform gains more political power in this country.
Coco Khan So egged on by the right, the politics of migration has dominated 2025. The crossing of so-called small boats over the English channel and the use of asylum hotels have become a focal point for protest violence and escalating rhetoric.
Nish Kumar In August, we saw violent protests outside asylum hotels in September. More than 100,000 people turned out for Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally, calling for remigration, which is obviously a term that has kind of haunted communities like all of ours. We’ll all be gone. Yeah, that’s right. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s a term that’s haunted, you know, my family since my mum arrived here in 1973. You know, we’ve also seen Union Jack and St. George flags pop up across the UK, many organized by the Far Right campaign. Operation Raise the Colors.
Coco Khan So this is scary stuff, and it’s led to more scary stuff such as the shake-up of the immigration system proposed by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. She plans to crack down on asylum and tighten the criteria for legal migration, extending settlement from five to 10 years, and of course, breaking the news that Keir Starmer really loves flags.
Clip I’m a supporter of flags, I’ve got one behind me and in our flat, which is upstairs from here as you know, we’ve got St George’s flag in our…
Coco Khan How many flags have you got, Shappi?
Shappi Khorsandi I’ve got 490. I love a flag, me. I got one in my bathroom, one on my roof. I love flags. Sometimes I bake with my flags. What is wrong with him? Why don’t they have a PR department? I would do a better job writing his script and I waffle.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul One moment you’re saying the country’s like an island of strangers, the next moment like the flag stuff, but you’re not setting the debate on your terms, you’re saying the debate because someone else has kind of sparked the whole flag conversation, and then you’re kind of making the immigration system increasingly more hostile.
Nish Kumar The Island of Strangers speech was a comment that he made in May this year that he subsequently said that he regrets and said that particular phrase, it wasn’t right, I’ll give you the honest truth, I deeply regret using it. And the reason I would say that he regretts using it is because it echoes very, very strongly almost to the word phrases used in Enoch Powell’s 1968 speech that’s become known as the Rivers of Blood speech in which Powell described a future in which Britons found themselves made strangers in their own country. Stama said that we risk becoming an island of strangers due to years of mass migration and failure of those communities to properly integrate.
Shappi Khorsandi God, I wish. Do you know what? The amount of neighborhood WhatsApp groups I am on in London, I accidentally wandered into a WhatsApp group purely by chance. I ended up going on holiday with 40 families in my immediate locale. So 90 of us all together, including all the kids. I can’t move for community stuff going on, right? You alright?
Nish Kumar You’re actually actively trying to de-integrate.
Shappi Khorsandi I wish we were an island of strangers. Have you been to the Isle of Wight? You go to the Isle Of Wight, you ask someone directions, they will walk you there. They will invite you in for a cup of tea. There’s not a moment to be on your own. And you know what? If you feel you’re an island of strangers, go up to that woman with a face covering. Say hello.
Nish Kumar Yeah.
Shappi Khorsandi Say hello! All right, listen. Invite her kid around to your house. Nothing’s stopping you. It’s a two-way thing, right?
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul I don’t know, I leave my house every morning and I see people from all over the world just getting by, getting on with their own life, and I just, I’ve never thought that these people are strangers. They may look at me as if I’m a stranger, I don’t know, just yapping a load of nonsense, but I just think people just get on with there lives and to instigate this kind of non-rhetoric that I think most people experience or don’t experience around whether they’re strangers or not, it’s just nonsensical really. I don, I didn’t really get it, it kind of seemed to appear a bit out of the blue. All of a sudden we were made to think, oh, actually, is this person a stranger of mine, or is this… I really…
Shappi Khorsandi I really worry that some Muslim women are going to experience racists running up to them and shouting hello in their face.
Nish Kumar What have you started Shafi, what have you starting?
Shappi Khorsandi But that whole idea is like, well, what’s behind this? Are we feeling more adrift? Are we feel more lonely? You know, there are so many things going on for people that it’s just a lie that we’re an island of strangers. I mean, you’ve got to talk to people. You have to talk people.
Coco Khan Coming up, leadership, lawsuits, and some lovely awards.
Nish Kumar [AD]
Nish Kumar Before we round up this conversation, we should at least acknowledge the behavior of the president of America who sort of loomed over 2025 like the alien spaceship in Independence Day. And like that spaceship, he did manage to do a substantial amount of damage to the White House this year, demolishing a chunk of it. Listen, as much as this show is a British political show that exists within an American news network, we feel a lot of the time because of that. There is no need for us to comment too much on Trump’s behavior and activities because there were loads of podcasts within the crooked family that are doing that already. But unfortunately for us this year, Donald Trump has done and said a string of things that directly impact lives of people in the United Kingdom, not least because of his cozying up to authoritarian leaders and his expressing fondness for European authoritarians like Viktor Orban and obviously his close relationship with Russia’s President Putin.
Coco Khan Another of his hobbies is suing news organizations. So the BBC is now facing a claim of up to $10 billion in damages, which has just been filed in a Florida court. The BBC apologized for a dodgy edit of a Trump speech in a Panorama documentary, but has defended its journalism and says there’s no basis for a defamation lawsuit. Did you know, by the way, in that lawsuit, Donald Trump quotes Liz Truss as a source, basically saying, well, the former prime minister says that there is BBC bias.
Nish Kumar I know, but she was prime minister for, I think, as long as it takes for me to take a shit in the morning. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, she is really, she’s claiming that term on a technicality at this point. And you eat a lot of fiber. I eat a lots of fiber, I’m a huge fruit consumer. But as we record on Wednesday the 17th of December, the BBC continues to stand firm and says it will push back on this, which is really important, there is a very important principle here. It would be nice if we could hear from any of the front bench on this issue. It’d be nice. If our government would stand by the national broadcaster of this country, I fear it’s not going to, but yeah, there is a really important principle at stake here and American news organizations have rolled over in the face of Trump’s litigious actions because they’re worried about their own positions, but it’s very, very important that people stand by the BBC, a mistake was made. It’s been apologized for. But look, before we go, we want to wrap up with some awards, and many of them have been suggested by you, the listeners.
Coco Khan Our first award was sent in by Lorraine. It’s the International Gaslighter of the Year Award, sponsored by the Elon Musk Impulse Tweet Foundation. So who do you think Lorraine’s nomination was? Donald Trump is definitely a very strong contender. There’s so many choice examples to choose from, but let’s try this quote. Affordability is a hoax made up by the Democrats.
Nish Kumar Yeah, that’s a direct quote, yeah.
Coco Khan That’s a good gaslighter line. But what about Benjamin Netanyahu for denying a genocide, or Vladimir Putin for the entire Ukraine conflict?
Nish Kumar Any thoughts on Gaslighter of the Year for you guys?
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Putin was going to be my one, I mean, bringing people to the table endlessly to negotiate some form of peace treaty and then just doing his own thing I think is a bit, it’s a bit gaslighty I would say. Very gaslightly.
Shappi Khorsandi I would say I’m the gaslighter of the year and anyone else and there’s loads and loads of us who didn’t speak up against what was happening in Gaza quick enough because we gaslighted ourselves into worrying that people would think we’re anti-Semitic. And I think that is a gaslighting of ourselves that scores.
Coco Khan Us share. I think I’d go for Shabana Mahmood because she did that speech where she was just like, I have to be horrible to people of color to help people of color. You want me?
Nish Kumar Well, she said in the Houses of Parliament, you’re not the one being called fucking packing. Right. You know, she used that language in Parliament. It’s very emotive language. And it was designed to say, well, you know, you can’t question my credentials because I’ve been racially abused, so now I’m going to do what the racists want from me. It’s not, it’s not. The way we were raised, Shabana, it’s not the way we’ve been raised. I don’t remember our parents at any point saying, listen, where possible, try and compromise with the races, okay? It’s not that way we’re raised. I mean, yeah, I mean I think, listen, I think we can award that on this kind of split decision to maybe Putin and Netanyahu. You should be generous to yourself, Shappi. You were gaslit by…
Shappi Khorsandi I can’t believe I really want this title.
Nish Kumar The next award is a bit more clear-cut, I would say, Coco.
Coco Khan Yes. So it’s the Couldn’t Run a Bath Award. It’s also been sent in by Lorraine. Thanks Lorraine for some great ideas. It is the Couldn’t Run a bath award for incompetence and it’s also sponsored by Thames Water, which is funny because the winner is Thames Water. Very rare moment of self-awareness in the private sector. Just to recap on Thames water.
Nish Kumar Builds have gone up around 30% for customers earlier in the year. Thames Water has been ordered to pay record fines for pollution. It’s in debt to a figure of around 17 billion pounds. Crisis talks are ongoing and creditors now essentially own the company. If the deal isn’t reached, it could collapse and end up in governmental control. I mean, the water privatization may well be classified eventually as one of the dumbest decisions in human history. What’s going on? I mean, it’s…
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul It’s so expensive, watch is so expensive. I’ve been my little-
Coco Khan I’ve lost for days. Really, yeah, just-
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul It’s soaking.
Coco Khan And now a PSUK special. You ask for it so often, our lovely listeners, and that is for our hero and villain. We’re going to do it for the year this time. So villain of the year, our nominee.
Nish Kumar I mean, maybe it’s the most obvious choice, but I mean the way Nigel Farage has conducted himself. I mean Jovan, you’ve sort of, I’ve had a bit of experience, you had a bit of experienced dealing with him. These sort of slew of racism allegations about his time at Dulwich College, not just the allegations themselves, but the way that they’ve been rubbished by Farage and Richard Tice. What was your experience of running up close with Nigel?
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Yeah, I mean, the thing that’s probably the most scariest about him is his charisma and his oratory capacity and all of these things because behind it all is a lot of nothing but kind of an element of hatred and ignorance and prejudice and stuff like that. And I mean that’s telling from the racism stories that have now appeared since he was at school. So, yeah, I think he’s very much a villain of British politics. I always say this guy was so successful in pushing the country up a cliff before he even got into the House of Commons. What damage could he do to the country if he ever becomes Prime Minister? I mean he’s sat in the corner of the House the Commons with four or five MPs, however many they have now, and he’s already the backseat driver for the Tory party and is increasingly guiding some of the direction of the Labour government. This guy could do a lot of damage if he every has a whiff of power, even if like leader of the opposition.
Nish Kumar It’s so important to focus on the damage he’s already done, you know, Brexit continues to impact on our economy on a day-to-day basis.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Whilst having a load of hypocrisies, I mean he still benefits from Europe, he’s still like a millionaire sat in the House of Commons, getting a lot of working class voters to support for him when he’s got none of their natural kind of allyship or sympathies. He’s got no understanding of what it’s like when you’re struggling to pay your bills or you’re trying to pay rent and any of this stuff. So yeah, I means he’s a humongous villain but I fear he’s going to be a bit of a villain to come as well in the coming years and months ahead.
Coco Khan So I think it’s fair to say that Faraj is the winner.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul I guess so.
Nish Kumar But let’s end on a happier note. Who were our heroes of the year? Who did we find? A couple of listeners have suggested some people. Andy nominated disabled people against cuts. Andy said behind the scenes they did so much with MPs, writing briefings, research, attending meetings, writing amendments and coordinating with other groups, all of it unpaid and in many cases at the expense of their mental and physical health. It’s an extraordinary amount of work. The U-turn on those welfare cuts was achieved by a lot of very, very hard work. By activists on the ground. I got to go down on the lobby day to Parliament and met some of them. That has been very inspiring to get to see activists on the grounds making change.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul There’s such an oversight as to the contributions of disabled people and what they actually bring obviously to the country and the impact that successive governments have done to these people. One thing I would add is that I think a lot of this stuff could be done because Vicky Foxcroft actually resigned on principle, which probably gave them a lot more arson and ammunition to say, well, look, surely something must be wrong. And so I think there’s obviously huge amounts of credit to disabled people against cuts. And so many other organizations, but I think on the political side, Vicky Foxcroft did a really principled and honorable thing and I think that should be commended and not lost in some of this discussion.
Nish Kumar Anyone else that’s really inspired either of you two this year.
Shappi Khorsandi Well, before I heard that really beautiful and passionate bit you just did, which I wholeheartedly agree with, I was going to suggest Gary Lineker, but he just seems like… an absolute tumble weed. What’s he ever done for anyone. Where has he ever stuck his neck out?
Nish Kumar Listen, he’s left a job on principle. I will say, unfortunately, as with everyone that leaves the BBC, it’s immediately freed him up to do much more lucrative commercial work. Anyway, let’s not go down the road. We’re pleased that Gary Lineker is a person of principle and continues to speak his mind on a number of issues.
Coco Khan It is bananas how unsafe speaking your mind has become. You know, when we were all talking there, I just had a quick look. How many people have been arrested for a peaceful protest this year? Well, related to Gaza, apparently 2,700. That’s an enormous amount of people. Yeah. And, you know, like you hear about famous cases. Obviously, we’ve been talking about Palestine Action. There’s a hunger strike going on at the moment right now. There was a led by donkeys face the rest. And then my mind then wandered onto the people in the. Guards of flotilla and just how increasingly dangerous it is becoming now to, to protest. And so it’s kind of a bit of a cop-out to say like, Oh, my heroes of the year are all those people because I can’t list all their names, but genuinely like it takes enormous bravery to do what some of these people are doing. Organization.
Shappi Khorsandi I mean, that’s the thing that really, like, I am the can’t run a bass. Oh, it’s astounding.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Is that what you’re sitting in for weeks and weeks and…
Shappi Khorsandi I’m waiting for a plumber anecdote now. I’ve got too many plumbing out.
Jovan Uwusu-Nepaul Who’s inspired me? You have to forgive me. King Charles has done a good job of getting rid of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor out of the royal family. I think that’s actually something that should be commended. And then he’s also spoken about prostate cancer, which I know affects a lot of people. So, I mean, I know it’s a bit of a wet one, and I’m not the biggest fan of the Royal Family because I think there’s a lot problems. But you know what, for a king, I think he’s done quite…
Nish Kumar I’m unwilling to give him credit for the first one because they should have got rid of that man a long time ago, but I do think it is important to highlight the fact that he’s talked about his prostate cancer diagnosis, him and Chris Hoy. And the Southport stuff as well. Yeah, they’ve really, that has made a difference. The conversation about screening for prostate cancer and it’s really important and it is actually especially important for men of color because those rates are rising as well, that is worth commending. In the summer when I was feeling at quite a low end. I went to see the American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates do a talk as part of the Edinburgh Book Festival. And I’ve talked about it almost every day since that happened because the summer was a low ebb politically in this country. And worse was to come, actually, given that I was watching him in August and September was the United Kingdom rally. And he said two things that I think have really stuck with me. One, he was asked about organizations being scared into silence. In America. And he said that we’re in the season of the coward, which is a phrase that I think has really stuck with me. But the other thing that really has stuck with me is that he was asked about what makes him hopeful. And he said nothing. So then he was asked, why do you keep going? And he said, well, you have to consider that my sort of personal history involves slavery and it involves enslaved people and it involves people who were born in slaves and died slaves. And that was their entire lifespan. And That’s the true story. Of the African-American community. And he said, so I have debts to pay because there are people that fought. That community out of that situation. Black people found emancipation for themselves in that country. And he said that he writes and he still engages with politics because he has debts to pay. And that phrase, I think, has sort of rattled around my head since I heard it. And if you’re a woman or a person of color or a person from a working class family or an immigrant or a member of the LGBTQIA community, you only have your life now because of sacrifices other people make. Despair is not an option because you and we all have debts to pay. And that phrase, I think, is the thing that has kind of powered me through the last three or four months in this country and in this year. And I hope it’s something that continues to inspire me. But right now, that’s the thing. That’s keeping me going. And that’s the thing that’s kept me going.
Shappi Khorsandi I wholeheartedly feel that I like a safe life, a nice life when I’m not getting trolled to shit on the internet. I’m having to engage with pain, but it’s a duty. So the fight goes on. Academics have said this much better, but you can’t be a racist or not racist. You’re either racist or anti-racist. And that takes work. For all of us, just because I’m a person of color doesn’t mean I haven’t had my own prejudice and you have to really, really walk through the fire.
Coco Khan Honestly, I hang out with my family long enough, I’m like, oh yeah, I am a racist now. That’s the thing with white people.
Shappi Khorsandi Oh, they think they’re the only ones with racist relatives. There’s an uncle that we only see once a year at Christmas and we walk around going, you know. He’ll be gone soon.
Nish Kumar So look, our hero of the year are all of the above.
Coco Khan Finally, a small plug. Choose Loves Together for Palestine Fund are trying to get the Christmas number one spot. The song is a reworking of a Palestinian folk song and features the likes of Brian Eno, Nena Cherry and Palestinian singer, Nye Borgati.
Nish Kumar It carries a defiant message about demanding dignity and all of the profits will go to urgent life-saving causes for the people of Gaza. So how can we make this happen? You can buy the single, you can stream the single. You can tell your friends and get it to number one.
Coco Khan And that is it. So thank you for listening to Pod Save the UK. Don’t forget to follow at Pod Save the UK on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and blue sky.
Nish Kumar Thank you so much to our wonderful guests, Jovan and Shappi. Merry Christmas, Merry Nishmas. Thank you.
Shappi Khorsandi Merry NISHmas to you all.
Nish Kumar Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.
Coco Khan Thanks to lead producer May Robson and digital producer Jacob Liebenberg.
Nish Kumar Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.
Coco Khan Our engineer is Jeet Vasani and our social media producer is Narda Smilinic.
Nish Kumar The executive producers are Kate Fitzsimons and Katie Long with additional support from Ari Shwartz.
Coco Khan And remember to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays on Amazon, Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
